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Who blew voter ID?

TIM POTTS

Updated:
10/12/2012 03:09:52 PM EDT

For those who favor Pennsylvania's new voter ID law, the culprits are the plaintiffs who took the law to court and, apparently, prevailed in their view that the law, as it is being implemented, would disenfranchise a large number of eligible voters. Remember that no one arguing this case claimed that voter ID is an unreasonable thing to do under the right circumstances.

The complaint and the court rulings assert that the law is being rushed into effect before all eligible voters can get the required ID. In 2005, the bi-partisan Commission on Federal Election Reform endorsed voter ID but also recommended that it be phased in over two federal election cycles, or at least two and a half years.

So if no one objected to voter ID per se in court, why did it turn into such a failure and national embarrassment for Pa.? Looking at the history of the voter ID law , it's hard to escape the conclusion that Senate Republicans and Gov. Tom Corbett blew it.

March 2011 -- The proposal was introduced in the House. Then came April, May, and June when the proposal passed the House and went to the Senate.

There it sat in July, August, September, October, November, December (when there was some committee action), January 2012, February, and finally March when the proposal passed the Senate with amendments. The House agreed with the Senate amendments, and Governor Corbett signed the bill into law.

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Given that voter ID was such a high priority, it makes one wonder why it sat in the Senate for nine months, long enough for a family to bring a child into the world. In particular it makes one wonder whether the delay wasn't designed to ensure that as many voters as possible would find it difficult, if not impossible, to get ID in time for Election Day.

It also makes one wonder whether, if the Senate had acted as promptly as the House (just three months), the plaintiffs in the voter ID case would have prevailed. There would have been more than a year between enactment and implementation instead of less than eight months. It's not two federal election cycles, but arguably it would have been enough if the law were implemented competently.

But the Corbett administration, despite more than a year of notice, was unprepared to implement the law. Again, one has to wonder whether this is mere managerial incompetence, a plan to prevent some people from voting, or both.

Since March, the implementation has resembled nothing so much as a Rube Goldberg machine. Nearly every week, the Department of State, which is responsible for conducting elections, and the Department of Transportation (PennDOT), which is responsible for issuing photo driver licenses, announced new attempts to get ID to everyone before Election Day. These included measures not included in the law.

Nearly every week, stories emerged of people who got the run-around when trying to get ID, including being charged for an ID that is supposed to be free and state employees who had received no training about their role in providing ID to eligible voters. All of this culminated in agency officials saying under oath that it is certain some eligible voters would be disenfranchised if the law were allowed to take effect this year.

Now the question is whether the Corbett administration will finally begin to implement the law competently. If not, the next hearing on the law, scheduled for
Dec. 13, may find that the law can't be enforced next year either. The Corbett administration has to be able to prove that it can get the required ID in the hands of every eligible voter. If efforts to date are any indication, the administration may not be able to do that.

Both the Corbett administration and the General Assembly told the court that they could not document a single case of someone coming to the polls pretending to be someone else. Even so, citizens have been told repeatedly that voter fraud is rampant in Philadelphia, changing the outcome of statewide elections.

The truth is otherwise. In 2008, President Barack Obama won Pennsylvania by 620,000 votes. He received 595,000 votes in Philadelphia. In other words, if every vote cast for Obama in Philadelphia were fraudulent, he still would have won the election. No amount of fraud in Philadelphia would have changed or did change the outcome of the election.

In truth, if there really were massive voter fraud in Philadelphia, no Republican could ever win statewide office. Yet today we have a Republican governor, a Republican attorney general, and a Republican U.S. senator. Republicans have held every statewide office at one time or other.

The integrity of elections is too important to be influenced by phony claims that fraud in Philadelphia tips the scales in statewide elections. Perhaps it's time for Pennsylvania to create a non-partisan commission on voter fraud to document whether it exists, how great a problem it is if it does exist, and which urban, suburban and rural areas are responsible for it. That is the only way we will enact laws that can truly put an end to it.This year Pennsylvania focused on stopping ineligible people from voting. Next year, the state should focus on making it easy and convenient for all eligible voters to cast their ballots. We can't enjoy all of the blessings of representative democracy without doing both. Tim Potts is a founder of Democracy Rising PA.